But thou art cold, my murder'd love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving
For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.
She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;

I swept that flower from Judah's stem

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; And mine 's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earn'd those tortures well

Which, unconsumed, are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF
JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, O Sion! when render'd to Rome :
"T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of
thy fall

Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.
I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in
vain.

They demanded the song; but, oh never

That triumph the stranger shall know! May this right hand be wither'd for ever, Ere it string our high harp for the foe! On the willow that harp is suspended, Oh Salem! its sound should be free; And the hour when thy glories were ended But left me that token of thee: And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath

blown,

That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, |
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew
still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

A SPIRIT PASS'D BEFORE ME.
FROM JOB.

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of Immortality unveil'd-

Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine-
And there it stood,-all formless-but divine.
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And, as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake :
"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even seraphs insecure ?
Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just ?

Things of a day! you wither ere the night,

IN THE VALLEY OF WATERS.

In the valley of waters we wept o'er the day

When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey, And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay, And our hearts were so full of the land far away. The song they demanded in vain-it lay still

In our souls, as the wind that hath died on the hill; They call'd for the harp-but our blood they shall spill

Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of our skill.

All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree,
As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be ;

(1) “The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to Lord Byron's other works, display a skill in versification, and a mastery in diction, which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction. Jeffrey.

(2) The musical composer of the Hebrew Melodies, Mr. Nathan, gives the annexed anecdote relative to these lines:-"Having been officiously taken up by a person who arrogated to himself some self-importance in criticism, and who made an observation upon their demerits, Lord Byron quaintly observed, 'They were written in haste, and they shall perish in the same manner!' and imme

THEY SAY THAT HOPE IS HAPPINESS.

THEY say that hope is happiness;

But genuine love must prize the past, And memory wakes the thoughts that bless; They rose the first-they set the last. And all that memory loves the most Was once our only hope to be, And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory. Alas! it is delusion all;

The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are. (2)

diately consigned them to the flames. As my music adapted to them, however, did not share the same fate, and having a contrary opinion of any thing that might fall from the pen of his Lordship, I treasured them up, and on a subsequent interview with his Lordship, I accused him of having committed suicide in making so valuable a burnt-offering: to which he smilingly replied, 'The act seems to inflame you; come, Nathan, since you are displeased with the sacrifice, I will give them to you as a peace-offering, use them as you may deem proper.""

ADVERTISEMENT.

"THE Grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into

(1) The Siege of Corinth, which appears, by the original MS. to have been begun in July, 1815, made its appearance in January, 1816. Mr. Murray having enclosed Lord Byron a thousand guineas for the copyright of this poem and of Parisina, he replied,"Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome to them, as additions to the collected vofumes; but I cannot consent to their separate publication. I do not like to risk any fame (whether merited or not) which I have been favoured with upon compositions which I do not feel to be at all equal to my own notions of what they should be though they may do very well as things without pretension, to add to the | publication with the lighter pieces. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of ccidents by the way-I wish you would not throw temptation in mine. It is not from a disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his treasures, I can

the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country, (2) thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the

assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances. I am very glad that the hand-writing was a favourable omen of the morale of the piece; but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing I desired, in all the ignorance of innocence -1 hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either." The copyist was Lady Byron. Lord Byron gave Mr. Gifford carte-blanche to strike out or alter any thing at his pleasure in this poem, as it was passing through the press; and the reader will be amused with the varia lectiones which had their origin in this extraordinary confidence. Mr. Gifford drew his pen, it will be seen, through at least one of the most admired passages. -E.

(2) Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three

Many a vanish'd year and age,

And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,
A fortress form'd to Freedom's hands. (1)
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,
Have left untouch'd her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill;
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon's brother bled, (2)
Or baffled Persia's despot fled,
Arise from out the earth which drank
The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below :
Or could the bones of all the slain,
Who perish'd there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise

More mountain-like, through those clear skies,
Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis,

Which seems the very clouds to kiss. (3)

II.

On dun Citharon's ridge appears

The gleam of twice ten thousan. ears;

naouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble.

(1) In the original MS.—

"A marvel from her Moslem bands."-E.

(2) Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards killed him for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth, preferring his duty to his country to all the obligation of blood. Dr. Warton says, that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Dr. Akenside had the same design.-E.

(5) The Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, the Corsair, Lara, the Siege of Corinth, followed each other with a celerity which was only rivalled by their success; and if at times the author seemed to pause in his poetic career, with the threat of forbearing further adventure for a time, the public eagerly pardon ed the breach of a promise by keeping which they must have been sufferers. Exquisitely beautiful in themselves, these tales received a new charm from the romantic climes into which they introduced us, and from the oriental costume so strictly preserved and so picturesquely exhibited. Greece, the cradle of the poetry with which our earliest studies are familiar, was presented to us among her ruins and her sorrows. Her delightful scenery, once dedicated to those deities who, though dethroned from their own

And, downward to the Isthmian plain,
From shore to shore of either main,
The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;
And the dusk Spahi's bands (4) advance
Beneath each bearded pacha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach
The turban'd cohorts throng the beach;
And there the Arab's camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd, (5)
The sabre round his loins to gird;
And there the volleying thunders pour
Till waves grow smoother to the roar.
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath
Wings the far-hissing globe of death;
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;
And from that wall the foe replies,
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,
With fires that answer fast and well
The summons of the Infidel.

III.

But near and nearest to the wall
Of those who wish and work its fall,
With deeper skill in war's black art
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart
As any chief that ever stood
Triumphant in the fields of blood;
From post to post, and deed to deed,
Fast spurring on his reeking steed,
Where sallying ranks the trench assail,
And make the foremost Moslem quail;
Or where the battery, guarded well,
Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire

The soldier slackening in his fire;

Olympus, still preserve a poetical empire, was spread before us in Lord Byron's poetry, varied by all the moral effect derived from what Greece is and what she has been, while it was doubled by comparisons, perpetually excited, between the philosophers and heroes who formerly inhabited that romantic country, and their descendants, who either stoop to their Scythian conquerors, or maintain, among the recesses of their classical monntains, an independence as wild and savage as it is precarious. The orientat manners, also, and diction, so peculiar in their picturesque effect that they can cast a charm even over the absurdities of an eastern tale, had here the more honourable occupation of decorating that which in itself was beautiful, and enhancing by novelty what would have been captivating without its aid. The powerful impression produced by this peculiar species of poetry confirmed us in a principle, which, though it will hardly be challenged when stated as an axiom, is very rarely complied with in practice. It is, that every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct view of the landscape, sentiment, or action, which he intends to describe to the reader." Sir Walter Scott.

(4) Turkish holders of military fiefs which oblige them to join the army, mounted at their own expense.-E. (5) The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents.

The first and freshest of the host
Which Stamboul's sultan there can boast,
To guide the follower o'er the field,
To point the tube, the lance to wield,
Or whirl around the bickering blade ;-
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade!
IV.

From Venice-once a race worth
His gentle sires-he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore,
Against his countrymen he bore
The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow,
Through many a change had Corinth pass'd
With Greece to Venice' rule at last;
And here, before her walls, with those
To Greece and Venice equal foes,
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
To him had Venice ceased to be
Her ancient civic boast-" the Free;"
And in the palace of St. Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed
A charge against him uneffaced:
He fled in time, and saved his life,
To waste his future years in strife,
That taught his land how great her loss
In him who triumph'd o'er the cross,
'Gainst which he rear'd the crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die.

4.

Coumourgi (1)—he whose closing scene
Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene,
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain,
The last and mightiest of the slain,
He sank, regretting not to die,
But cursed the Christian's victory—
Coumourgi-can his glory cease,
That latest conqueror of Greece,
Till Christian hands to Greece restore
The freedom Venice gave of yore?
A hundred years have roll'd away
Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway,
And now he led the Mussulman,
And gave the guidance of the van
To Alp, who well repaid the trust
By cities levell'd with the dust;

(1) All Coumourgi, the favourite of three Sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one compaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners; and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian

And proved, by many a deed of death, How firm his heart in novel faith.

VI.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot Against them pour'd the ceaseless shot, With unabating fury sent

From battery to battlement;

And, thunder-like, the pealing din
Rose from each heated culverin;

And here and there some crackling dome
Was fired before the exploding bomb;
And as the fabric sank beneath
The shattering shell's volcanie breath,
In red and wreathing columns flash'd
The flame, as loud the ruin crash'd,
Or into countless meteors driven,
Its earth-stars melted into heaven;
Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun,
Impervious to the hidden sun,
With volumed smoke that slowly grew
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

VII.

But not for vengeance, long delay'd,
Alone, did Alp, the renegade,
The Moslem warriors sternly teach
His skill to pierce the promised breach;
Within these walls a maid was pent
His hope would win without consent
Of that inexorable sire,

Whose heart refused him in its ire,
When Alp, beneath his Christian name,
Her virgin hand aspired to claim.
In happier mood, and earlier time,
While unimpeach'd for traitorous crime,
Gayest in gondola or hall,

He glitter'd through the carnival;
And tuned the softest serenade
That e'er on Adria's waters play'd
At midnight to Italian maid. (2)